Surviving Summer with Kids

Summer as a retired empty nester is a lot like the rest of the year, except that my husband has more outdoor projects going on and I spend time reading in the hammock instead of in front of the fireplace.

But I remember summers with the five kids home. I was at a young mom’s home the other day and it all came back—the children running in and out, always with needs. “I scraped my knee!” “So-and-so is teasing me!” “Can I have a cookie?” and the most dreaded complaint, “I’m booooored.” Then there was the never-ending maintenance—the toys, shoes, socks, clothes, and towels that piled up on the floor and every other surface. The constant chaos in the kitchen as kids fixed themselves snacks and left out all the dishes and food afterwards. I remember thinking that I did nothing all summer but pick up after children.

I also am reminded of the many efforts I made to keep the children busy and happy, while maintaining my own sanity. Every so often I would try something new—a job chart, fake money to be given for chores, real money to be given for chores—you name it, I probably tried it. As my children grew older they would call these efforts The. New. World. Order. Most of these efforts were too ambitious and complicated and didn’t last.

But some simple ideas did persist and did give me some sanity. I share the ones I remember working here in hopes they might be helpful to moms who are still in the trenches. Take these thoughts for what they are worth--that is, if you care to trust advice from someone who can go lie in a hammock whenever she wants.

Principle 1. Boredom arises when children get to do whatever they want whenever they want to do it. 

If children are forced to do some things they don’t want to do at the beginning of the day, then they enjoy their freedom much more. (And they don’t bother you nearly as much, perhaps because they are afraid you will make them do more chores.)

Therefore, I made my children all get up at a reasonable hour, roughly the same as during the school year, have breakfast together and do morning chores. Then we all gathered around the kitchen table and had “school.” Each child had a minimum list of school work required each day, depending on their age and ability. We had math workbooks, a journal to write in, and reading to practice. To be honest, I enjoyed this time. It was fun to see them learning and laughing. This personal time with me seemed to get the day off to a good start.  

Once their school work was over, they had free time until lunch. Mostly they just exploded out to do the stuff they had been thinking of doing all the time I had made them work. They would play together or go find friends. In those days, a child would just bike around the neighborhood stopping at each child’s house to ask, “Can you play?”

Principle 2. Children need a break during the day, as do moms.

I always made my children come home for lunch at noon. I had a huge dinner bell; I would stand on the front porch and ring it, and they would all come running. We sat down to eat together, even if it was just peanut butter sandwiches. The kids told me about their morning. Sometimes I read to them from a book while they ate—Little House on the Prairie was a big hit one summer.

After lunch came Quiet Time. I admit, this was mainly for me. But I think the children enjoyed the break as much as I did. The rule was, they had to stay on their bed and be quiet for one hour. They could read or nap or color or even play quietly with toys, but they couldn’t talk to each other or to me. The older ones mostly would read. The youngest would nap, which was great because of late summer bedtimes. Once one of my little boys gave himself a haircut during quiet time. Well, it wasn’t all good.

During quiet time, I followed the same rules. I lay on my bed and read or napped. I did not do the dishes or clean house or any of the other chores that needed doing. Why waste good quiet time, I figured.

After quiet time, the kids again were thrilled to go find their playmates and do whatever they were excited to do.

Principle 3. Children like a routine.

Principles 1 and 2 relate to a daily routine. I also tried to have weekly routines. For example, one day of the week was always library day. We would gather up all the books from last week from under couches and behind beds in a big green laundry basket, haul them out to the brown fake-wood-sided station wagon, and pile in the kids. This was before seat belts were mandatory, so the kids piled in the cargo section around the books, sometimes reading as we went. At the library, I let everyone choose 10 books, which were piled back in the basket. On the way home, everyone was quiet as each read their books.

One summer a friend and I got together with our kids every week. One week we would go to her house, the kids would play together, and she and I would work on a household project together, like organizing kitchen cabinets. The next week she would bring her kids to my house and maybe we would can cherries together. This way both the kids and I could look forward to playing with special friends!

A young mom I know has this weekly routine down to a system:

Monday: Library and reading

Tuesday: Water and swimming (either water play at home or a trip to the swimming pool)

Wednesday: Theater (Cinemark Summer Movie Clubhouse—50 cents a ticket, with a picnic in the park afterwards)

Thursday: Friends

Friday: Field trip

I never was that organized, but I wish I had been. Each activity doesn’t take that long, yet it makes each day kind of exciting.

Of course, now summer plans need to include the whole Screen Time Issue. How much is too much? Should the kids earn time? How do you police screen use?

You're on your own here. When my kids were little, screen time meant watching “Brady Bunch” reruns at 4:00 pm.  Good luck!

Anyway, that’s the way I remember getting through summer vacation. And I actually remember feeling a little sad when it was time for school to start. I would love to hear from you how you manage/managed summer with the kids. I’ll look for your comments below.

And probably read them while resting in the hammock. Just remember, someday your children will be all grown up (sooner than you think), and you too will be able to hammock whenever you want!

My Mother’s Day Talk from 1999

My Mom, Leah, happy with her first baby, Richard. 

Before my first child, Anna, was born, I would have nightmares. In these terrifying dreams, I would be trying to diaper the baby or swaddle her in a blanket and have no idea how to do it. The tiny infant would gaze up at me impatiently, and cry out, “Mom, don’t you know how to do anything!”

I would wake up, horrified. How could I possibly be a mother; I didn’t know the first thing about how to do it.

When Anna was born, I still didn’t know anything about taking care of babies. But I instantly knew I loved every bit of her perfect little pink body, from the tiny long toes to her fuzzy miniature round head. I didn’t know how to care for a baby, but I knew how to love, and that is the main thing, I learned. 

With each new baby, I worried and wondered how I would manage with another child. As we walked into the hospital, fully in labor, I would tell Paul I changed my mind. Our family is just right as it is, and anyway, I could barely care for the ones I had.

But then, when that wonderful little being lay in my arms, I was filled again with that great love and I knew this was right. I was blessed to have this child in my life and all the other children too.

There’s joy in being a mom. When the children were little, early morning began with all the children piled around Paul and me on the queen size bed. Here’s an excerpt from my journal when there were just four little children.

First three-year-old Mark clambered over Paul, snuggling between us, announcing in his surprisingly deep voice, “I sleep, OK? I have good nap.” Then five-year-old Emily came padding in, eyes scarcely open. She climbed right in beside me, curling into a ball beneath my arm as if she belonged there. Soon baby David started to complain from his crib and Paul brought him in, the baby looking so like a fat sausage stuffed in blue blanket sleepers, we all laughed. In bed with everyone, David commenced climbing over our quilt-covered bodies like mountains, until all of us were wide awake and giggling. Seven-year-old Ann then appeared in the doorway, elegant though rumpled, appraising us all from beneath half-closed eyes before dropping into a ball at the foot of the bed. Before long Mark started begging for pancakes, and we all tumbled out of bed and raced for the kitchen.

The joy of motherhood is full and real. I could go on with stories of Saturday trips –“high adventure” we called them--traveling “wherever the hood ornament took us”; of working together in the yard and then going out for a “workers’ treat” of ice cream; of sitting at the dinner table talking and talking and talking, until David slid from his chair to lie on the carpet and continue the conversation from there.

But motherhood is also hard. There is the work, of course, which is not to be minimized. Though Paul is good to help, and most fathers are, there are always things that only a mother can do, or thinks to do. Henry Ward Beecher said once, “There is no slave out of heaven like a loving woman; and of all loving women, there is no such slave as a mother.” Mothers are up early making lunches, fixing breakfast, finding books, signing notes. They’re up late, tidying the house, helping with school projects, listening to teenagers. And in between, mothers are driving children to soccer games and piano lessons, and shopping for groceries to fill the magically emptying fridge.

And perhaps hardest of all, mothers worry. Mothers are some of the best worriers around. I myself am a world class worrier. I have been known to worry through most of the night because a child hadn’t completed the fourth-grade county report. Before the night was out, I was sure this act foreshadowed juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, lawlessness, and imprisonment. And of course, if these events came to pass, I had no doubt who would be ultimately to blame. Me, the mother, of course. My favorite cartoon shows a pro football player dejectedly heading for the lockers, having just lost a game. From the stand his mother leans over his head calling, “Don’t worry son. You couldn’t help it. It’s all my fault!”

We take a lot of responsibility on ourselves, and that is difficult even when things are going well. When they’re not, that responsibility becomes almost unbearable. One mother told me, despairing over children who had made poor choices, “If I had known it would end here I never would have become a mother.” Another sorrowing mother once asked, “Where did I go wrong? I tried so hard, and yet, look.”

So what do we do to be good moms, to raise our children in righteousness and joy? We can look at Heavenly Father’s example. (Remember that he also has trouble with his children from time to time.) We can never stop loving. In Jeremiah we read, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

If the mission of the church is to bring souls to Christ, mothers (and fathers too, but more about that in June) are the main missionaries. We are on the front lines as we strive every day to teach these spirits how to live, how to love, how to have faith. Certainly, we mess up. (Don’t ask me to tell you about the time I left David at a bathroom in Wells, Nevada.) And kids mess up too, and make their own choices, as they have every right to do. 

But most of the time we do just fine. We do fine because we love our children, we love them more than we love ourselves, and we show that by the way we act.

So this is our day. Let’s celebrate mothering. Be thankful for your mother, and your mother’s mother, all the way back. Be thankful for the mothers of all the good people that have brought light to the world. Be thankful for all the mothers alive now, trying so hard to do right by their children. Be thankful for the young women who will be the mothers of the future.

And if you happen to be a mother yourself, count your blessings. Be happy now, remember happy times, and think of happy times to come. Tell yourself you’re doing fine. You are. Remember your Heavenly Father and Mother are by your side, supporting your every effort. They are pleased with you, for all your love and caring and trying. With God’s help and your own great love, you are doing great.

Have a happy Mother’s Day.

Christ on the Carport

“I had this really weird dream I think I should tell you about,” Shelly commented in our Relief Society class a few Sundays ago. It is indeed a weird dream; I keep thinking about it. Though I hate to tell someone else’s dream, I’m going to give it a go.

In this dream, Shelly was in a car with her good friend Debbie, driving around the neighborhood. They would pull the car into someone’s driveway, and Debbie would start telling Shelly about all the hard things in that person’s life. As she told the story, Shelly made clear that the people in the dream were not real people in the neighborhood and she couldn’t remember the details—she just said that the people were suffering greatly and as she heard their stories she just felt so bad, so sorry, so dejected. What could ever help these poor people?

Though Shelly couldn’t remember the details of the sorrows Debbie told her, you and I know what they were. We see such sorrows all around us. The widower adrift and lonely after losing his wife of over sixty years. The parent distraught over a child’s heroin addiction. The mom diagnosed with cancer. Those suffering from mental illness: from depression, panic attacks, paranoia, and schizophrenia. The family without income and wondering how to pay the mortgage or the rent or to buy groceries. The mother who lost a son to suicide. The wife or child suffering silently from abuse. There is such sorrow all around us. If we were to stop in front of any home, and somehow see the sorrow faced within, we would indeed feel compassion and sadness.

And that doesn’t even begin to touch the sorrows beyond our neighborhoods--the tragedies we see every day in the news--the incredible sufferings of war, famine, oppression, epidemics, poverty, and more.

Shelley explained that each time Debbie explained the sadness behind the walls of each home, Shelley felt overwhelmed by despair. “How can these people manage? What sorrow to live with! What can I ever do to ease their pain?”

Then, as they sat in the driveway of yet another house, she felt compelled to look up, which she had never done in any of the other houses.

There, sitting on the roof of the carport, she saw the Savior sitting “Indian style” As she said it, Shelly stopped, and smiled, “How random is that?” On his face was an expression of great suffering and compassion, and he was sitting in a pool of blood.

That is, of course, how the people in the houses--how each of us-- could bear the sorrow. If we look up, we will find the Savior suffering with us. He suffered on Gethsemane and on the cross. He suffered 2000 years ago and he suffers with us now, aware of every pain and willing to bear it for us.

One of my favorite descriptions of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice is this one from The Book of Mormon: “And he . . . will take upon him the pains and sicknesses of his people. . . that his bowels may be filled with mercy. . . that he may know. . . how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:11-12). To me this means that he has suffered and does suffer the very pain that I suffer, and because he does, he understands my pain and he understands me. What is more intimate than that?

And because He knows my pain and knows me, he knows just how to help me in my pain and suffering.

But to receive that help, I do need to ask diligently, in faith believing, willing to act upon my faith.

Here is another Easter story that I think of.

I think of Mary Magdalene and her great sorrow, as she watched her Savior suffer on the cross, watched him buried hastily in a borrowed tomb.

I think of Mary crying in despair, her world seemingly at an end, through that lonely Sabbath of mourning. Then, the Sabbath over, I think how she must have washed her face and thought, “What can I do? How can I reach out to my Lord? How can I serve Him still?”

She knew what she could do. It wasn’t much, but she knew she and her friends could do it. They gathered what they needed--the linens, the oils, the spices--and walked steadfastly toward the tomb, to honor their Savior with their loving service, to carefully prepare the body. They did not even know for sure how they were going to do it. They wondered among themselves, “Who shall roll away the stone from the door?”

But they stepped forth to do what they could do.

Then, there at the tomb, the stone was rolled away, the body missing. Mary, as we often do, assumed the worst: “Oh no! They have taken even his body away from me. I cannot do even that small service for him.”

She must have felt that her act of faith had been denied. Why was her prayer unanswered?

Her friends left her there, sobbing, feeling there was no way out of her sorrow.

Then she heard a voice. “Mary.” She turned and saw her risen Lord, glorious before her.

Her sorrow turned to joy as she saw his pain and suffering turned to victory.

I keep thinking of these two images of Christ. Christ on the carport, bleeding and suffering for and with our sorrows. And the glorious risen Christ, who overcomes all pain and sorrow. Christ offers us both—the bleeding Christ suffering with us, and the great and radiant Savior who will turn all our sorrow to joy.

Even in the depths of sorrow, as we look up, we can find our loving Lord suffering for and with us. As we step forward in faith to do what we can for Him, even in the midst of our suffering, we will find what he offers: help and hope and joy.